


Solid Gold

by nztina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29397591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nztina/pseuds/nztina
Summary: Draco Malfoy bought three of the same gift for Valentine's Day...and none of them are for Hermione Granger.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 84
Collections: Dramione Valentine Exchange





	Solid Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seakays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seakays/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [DramioneValentineExchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DramioneValentineExchange) collection. 



> Happy Valentine's Day, Seakays! I hope you enjoy this little fic xx

** The Malfoy Town House, London - February 2003 **

“Why is Hermione in my guest bedroom, sobbing her eyes out?”

Draco looked up as Ginny questioned him, her hands on her hips. Blaise was still standing, having hurriedly gotten to his feet when his wife came through the Floo with no warning.

“What’s happened?” he asked, touching her elbow with that married affection that made Draco squirm.

“All I could get out of her was,” she rested her weight on her right leg, hip jutting out as she crossed her arms and levelled a punishing glare at Draco, “the words: _‘Valentine’_ , _‘necklace’_ and _‘Draco’_.”

Draco immediately straightened, his cheeks reddening. Ginny noticed the change and her eyebrows shot up.

“Ah, hah!” She stormed over to him. “Tell me what you did.”

“I don’t know!”

She scoffed. “Yeah, of course not. Typical. You finally ask her out, and then you go and screw it up by doing something stupid. It’s not like she’s been in love with you for the past three years—“

“Ginny!” Blaise shouted, clapping a hand over her mouth. But it was too late. Draco paled.

“What?” he managed to ask, his voice suddenly hoarse.

Ginny pulled Blaise’s hand away, her eyes wide. “Draco—”

He crowded her, a hand on her wrist. “Ginny, what did you just say?”

“Mate,” Blaise started, “just forget it.”

His wife nodded, eagerly. “It was a mistake. My mistake.”

Draco glared between two of his closest friends, trying to find a chink in their collective armour. “You said she’s in love with me.”

Ginny laughed, shakily. “So you did hear, then. _Whoops_.”

“Ginny.”

“Draco, I shouldn’t have said it.” She ran a hand through her hair, looking guilty. “It’s not my place. She made me swear I wouldn’t tell you.”

“I don’t understand. Why not?” _Why not, when he had spent countless nights dreaming of her sweet face, of her smiling up at him? Why not, when he had finally worked up the courage to ask her if he could escort her to the Ministry’s annual Valentine’s Day gala this coming Friday?_

“Because,” Ginny looked at Blaise, and he nodded. “Because you were engaged to Astoria.”

“What?! Astoria and I ended things two years ago.”

“But you were so torn up about it, mate,” Blaise said. “We thought maybe you needed time. She wasn’t about to tell you how she felt when she thought you were mourning Astoria’s departure.”

“Astoria cheated on me! I wasn’t _mourning_ her, I was pissed because she stole Theo away!”

There was the magical equivalent of a record scratching and Ginny blinked up at Draco with her mouth hanging open. “Wait, so this means that you—when you were being all pathetic and mopey—”

“Ginny, be nice,” Blaise interjected.

“—you were really upset about Theo?”

Draco looked at her, incredulously. “He was one of my best mates! _Our_ best mate,” he said, gesturing to Blaise. “Why on earth would I have been upset about Astoria? She was horrible from the beginning!”

“How can you say that?” Ginny cried, furious. “You were engaged to her, you daft idiot!”

“Three words, Weasley—,”

“ _Zabini_.”

“—Unbreakable.” He counted on his fingers. “Marriage. Contract. I was legally bound to marry her.”

“So you’re saying that if she hadn’t cheated on you, you would have gone through with marrying that snotty cow? Because of a piece of paper your father signed when you were a baby?”

“It’s the way we do things!”

“That is just ridiculous, Malfoy, I swear to Merlin—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Blaise said, dissipating the anger in the room with a wave of his hand. “Why are we yelling about fucking _unimportant_ marriage contracts? Hermione’s upset, yeah? Is that not the pressing matter at hand?”

“Yes, true” Ginny turned back to look at Draco, “what’s that about? What did you do?”

He shrugged, panic rising. “I don’t know. Like you said, I’m a daft idiot. I could have done a number of things.”

“What did you say, love?” Blaise asked Ginny. “Something about a necklace?”

Draco frowned. “Necklace?”

“Did you mention a necklace to Hermione?”

He shook his head, puzzled, before something dawned on him. “Oh, those! I didn’t tell her about them, but I put in an order for—oh, bollocks, she must have seen that receipt. And now she thinks I’m some sort of—” he broke off.

“What?” Blaise pressed. Draco shook his head, stalking towards the Floo.

“I’ll tell you later. It’s a silly misunderstanding.” He grabbed his discarded coat, swinging it around his shoulders. “I need to find her and fix it. Spare bedroom, you said? Which one?”

“Third floor,” Ginny supplied, helpfully. “Opposite from the linen cupboard!”

Draco nodded his thanks and disappeared in a flood of green flames without another word.

Ginny turned to her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Bit on the nose, but I guess it was one way of getting them together,” she mused. Blaise rolled his eyes. 

“You told him on purpose, didn’t you?”

“A lady never reveals her secrets, Mr Zabini. Now, where do you suppose he keeps his stash of Firewhisky?”

— — —

** The Zabini Estate, Oxford - February 2003 **

Draco stumbled into the parlour of Blaise and Ginny’s home , dusting off his trousers as he walked across the hall to climb the staircase, three steps at a time. After accidentally giving the housekeeper a fright, he muttered his apologies and found the spare bedroom that was currently occupied by one _very upset_ Hermione Granger. Before he raised a hand to knock, a small sob filtered through the gap in the door and his heart clenched.

He knocked, anyway.

“Hermione?”

A gasp, and then the unmistakable noise of bed sheets rustling. He could almost imagine her burrowing out of her cave of blankets.

“What do you want?”

“To talk. Can I come in?”

There was silence and then, a mournful voice said, “I’m not really in the mood to talk right now, Draco.”

“Listen,” he sighed, resting his head against the door. “Let me in, please. There’s been a misunderstanding and I need to explain myself.”

“I understand perfectly, Draco. It’s my fault for thinking you were asking me on a date.”

“Hermione—,”

“I thought you were asking me in some sort of exclusive way, but if you’ve got other dates,” she continued, her voice getting louder, “or whatever it is they are, how could I be upset? It’s my fault for assuming. You know what they say about assuming things.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t, but even if I did, you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t have other dates.”

“I saw that receipt, Draco. I didn’t mean to, but you told me to grab your notes from the stack of files on your desk and the paper was just sitting there. You don’t have to lie about it.”

“I’m not lying. _Yes_ , I’ve ordered necklaces. _No_ , they’re not for other dates. You’re the—”

He broke off as the door swung in, revealing a very suspicious, puffy-eyed Hermione. She held her wand aloft as if he was an intruder.

“Go on.”

Draco sighed, stepping into the room. “Hermione, this isn’t how I imagined this confession going but I’ve been pining over you for years now, and Ginny and Blaise told me you’ve felt the same for a while—.”

“Liars, the both of them.”

“—so you have to trust me when I say that I nearly had a heart attack from nerves when I asked you out two weeks ago. And Astoria—I don’t know how everyone got the impression that I ever even liked her, but I didn’t. It’s only ever been you for me.”

Hermione’s shoulders deflated and she did that adorable pout that Draco wanted to kiss off her mouth.

“Then what exactly were the necklaces for?”

Draco’s ears went bright red as he looked at the floor, embarrassment flooding through his veins like ice water. “Okay, see, that’s the thing.”

Hermione turned and walked towards the bed, sitting down at the edge of it. “Go ahead.”

“The necklaces weren’t for people, per se. Not humans, anyway.”

She made a face. “Are you courting mermaids now? Or centaurs, or something?”

“No! Oh, Merlin. They’re for…”

“Yes?”

“Okay, fine, they’re for my elves.”

Hermione’s head snapped up and she levelled a calculating look at Draco. He stood stock still as she considered him. Rudy, Ellie and Lola were all free and worked for a generous salary. She had personally come to visit them after the war to make sure that they did, in fact, want to remain at Malfoy Manor instead of finding employment elsewhere.

“Your _elves_.”

Draco shut his eyes. “Last year, remember I hosted the Valentine’s do at the Manor?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the elves didn’t really understand what Valentine’s Day is about, since Mother and Father never celebrated it. So, I explained it and they were really excited about this year. They’ve been making each other Valentine’s presents for the past week. Cards, you know, and sweets and cakes. I felt bad that they were going to so much trouble for each other, especially after I found out they were making little presents for me as well, so thought I’d participate.”

“So you’ve bought them solid gold necklaces?”

He chanced a look at Hermione and found her wearing an astounded expression.

“Yes?”

“Amazing,” she murmured, and before Draco had time to think, Hermione had launched herself into his arms, tugging his lips to hers. He returned her kiss with ferocity for a few heartbeats before he pulled away, needing to breathe.

“Wait,” he panted. “Is everything okay now? Are _we_ okay?”

“Oh, yes,” Hermione grinned, her cheeks flushed. “We’re more than okay.”

“I’m so confused. You were upset a minute ago.”

Hermione nodded. “I was, because I thought you were a four-timing Cassanova…but that was before I found out that you are actually the perfect man.”

“Because I’ve bought presents for the elves?”

“Mhmm.”

Draco assessed the situation and found it difficult to think with Hermione’s legs wrapped around his waist. She watched him for a few seconds, trailing her nails up and down his chest. 

“So,” she whispered, “you think Ginny and Blaise will mind if we borrow their spare bedroom for a few hours?”

Draco swallowed her shriek of laughter before gently throwing her onto the bed and slamming the door shut with a wave of his wand.

**Author's Note:**

> I know you only asked for Draco to have one other supposed Valentine, but I figured that three couldn't hurt.


End file.
